Trump Picks Up Fundraising Momentum In Kentucky

For the first time this election season, Kentuckians gave more in a single month to Republican nominee for president Donald Trump than to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The GOP candidate raised $75,387 in June from individual Kentucky donors, according to new data from the Federal Election Commission. The former U.S. secretary of state raised $73,153 during the same time period.

The June haul represents a major shift for Trump, whose meager Kentucky fundraising had trailed behind all other major Republican candidates, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. In each of the first four months of the year, Trump never raised more than $9,000.

But in June Trump more than doubled his total pull from the commonwealth. He has raised a total of $130,049 since March 2015 in the state, while Clinton has garnered $783,046.

University of Kentucky political science professor Donald Gross said people can expect the trend of bigger donations for Trump to continue. The uptick could be attributed to the bump candidates typically see after a convention, but Gross said it could also mean Republican donors are feeling more confident and unified behind their nominee.

“If you think he has a chance to win, you start freeing up your money,” Gross said. “Some of those big money people, they’re looking for, you know, sort of the cues to start opening their wallets.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump

Clinton in June raked in more than six times as many individual donations as Trump. But the New York businessman’s donors gave much more per donation.

Clinton’s campaign received a total of 1,440 donations averaging $51 each from Kentuckians in June. She received eight donations of $1,000 or more. Trump’s campaign received 226 donations averaging about $334 each, and got 30 donations of $1,000 or more.

Democrat Bernie Sanders and independent Gary Johnson were the only candidates other than Clinton and Trump to raise money in Kentucky last month. The senator from Vermont raised $21,334 from 775 individual donations, averaging $28 each. June was Sanders’ lowest fundraising month in the state since December.

Sanders never officially dropped out of the race, but said in late June that he would vote for Clinton, and officially endorsed her July 12.

Johnson received two donations totaling $1,500. Overall, Kentuckians have donated more than $2.75 million to presidential candidates since March 2015 — $1.4 million to Democrats and $1.35 to Republicans.

Will Wright, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting's summer fellow, can be reached at wwright@kycir.org and (724) 344.6945.

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Kentucky’s Secretary of State says Americans can expect a big contrast between this week’s Democratic National Convention and last week’s Republican gathering in Cleveland.

Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes is speaking at her party’s convention in Philadelphia. She told WKU Public Radio Democrats will offer a more positive view of the U.S. than the one described by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“You’re going to see people from all across this nation, and importantly, our nominee, that believe America is already great. And we need a President that recognizes that, and will build upon that—unite people, not dividing them with hateful rhetoric.”

Grimes called Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a role model and friend for more than 24 years. The Clinton family is close with Grimes and her family, including Jerry Lundergan, Grimes' father and former chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party.

Grimes' mother, Charlotte Lundergan, is a superdelegate pledged to support Clinton.

Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul has raised more than $1.2 million in the fundraising quarter that ended June 30.

The haul is in addition to the more than $97,000 Paul raised in the one-month period leading up to the May primary, giving the first-term Senator more than $2.2 million in cash available to spend from his campaign account.

Records show Paul's Democratic challenger Jim Gray has just over $1 million in cash available to spend.

Rand Paul Victory Kentucky, a joint fundraising organization between Paul and the Republican Party of Kentucky, has just over $10,000 in cash available to spend.

Paul spokeswoman Kelsey Cooper said the campaign is "extremely pleased" with its fundraising efforts and confident Paul will have the resources necessary to spread his message to voters.

If there was ever a time to show party unity, this would be it. This week's Democratic Convention is supposed to be about showing a party standing behind its presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton — and it was headed in that direction by featuring a speech from Bernie Sanders on opening night Monday.

But it puts a damper on that whole unity feeling now that party Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz will resign after the convention — not to mention that her reason for stepping down is that leaked emails showed DNC staffers favoring Clinton during the primaries, and even discussing ways to help her defeat Sanders.

The controversy is an unpleasant distraction for a party launching into a four-day sales pitch to voters (and a response to last week's Republican convention). Just two weeks ago, after Sanders endorsed Clinton, Democrats seemed to be coming together after a bitter, divisive primary season.

But then, Clinton chose Tim Kaine as her running mate — many Sanders supporters and other progressives feel he is too moderate to advance their interests.

Now, yet another email scandal has added to Democrats' woes. And it has handed the GOP more ammunition to use after their own convention, which featured a plagiarism scandal and a high-profile snub from Ted Cruz. On Sunday, Trump took to Twitter to gloat over the Democrats' new problems.

Hillary Clinton will break the penultimate glass ceiling this week — becoming the first female nominee of a major American political party.

It's a historic milestone that's been obscured by Donald Trump's chaotic convention and, now, on the eve of the Democratic convention, the resignation of the DNC chairman following the leak of 20,000 emails showing that the DNC had its thumb on the scale for Clinton. The Clinton campaign blames the leak on the Russians, who they say are trying to put their thumb on the scales for Trump.

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How unified will the Democrats be?

The Wikileaks email dump threatened to upend the careful truce worked out between the Sanders camp and Clinton campaign. But it has led to a huge victory for Sanders. He got Debbie Wasserman Schultz's head on a platter. Sanders has had a terrible relationship with Schultz. He even endorsed her primary opponent. Did Schultz's resignation satisfy the Sanders forces? Or will they have a demonstration or a walkout on the floor of the convention, presenting an image of a party almost as divided as the GOP? The answer may come Monday night when Sanders addresses the convention. Will he wholeheartedly and enthusiastically back Clinton? If he does, that will go a long way to unifying the party.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine is Hillary Clinton's choice for her vice president, giving her a running mate with experience at all levels of government to round out the Democratic ticket.

Clinton told supporters the news in a text message and a tweet on Friday evening just after 8 p.m. ET. According to a Clinton campaign official, the former secretary of state called Kaine this evening to make the formal offer.

In recent days, Kaine had emerged as the favorite — albeit safe — pick for Clinton, over other finalists such as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Labor Secretary Tom Perez and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

According to the Clinton campaign official, their vetting process first began back in April with more than two dozen potential running mates. Kaine and Clinton campaigned last week in Northern Virginia as a tryout of sorts, and Clinton walked away impressed and comfortable with him as a partner. The two met with aides and then one-on-one for a total of about 90 minutes that night.

Last Saturday, the Kaine and Clinton met together with their families for lunch at the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, N.Y. She remained comfortable with Kaine as someone who could do the job, and the alliance was made.